Very Distributed Media Stories: Presence, Time, Imagination

The action of stories is always grounded and contextualized in a specific place and time. For centuries, artists seeking places worthy of representation have found inspiration in both the natural landscape and in man-made surrounds. This inspiration traditionally dwells on the scenic aspects of place and situation, in styles ranging from photorealistic to impressionistic. Sometimes, as in Australian aboriginal ”dreamtime maps,” the real, the historical, and the spiritual components of a place are simultaneously depicted with equal weightings. Sometimes, as in road maps and contour maps, super-simplified representations are enhanced with integrated or overlaid technical measurements; constructed artifacts, such as roads and airports, share equal billing with natural landmarks, such as lakes and rivers. The scale, focus, point-of-view, and narrative content of landscapes are chosen and manipulated to suit the artist’s (and the audience’s) specific purposes: they embody affordances which exert great influence over a work’s final use. When we view the image of a broad, sweeping vista, we seldom notice every leaf on every tree: indeed, artists seldom provide us with this level of detail. Instead, our attention is drawn through and across a collection of landmarks, consciously and unconsciously brought together to serve as sensually satisfying iconic and symbolic representations of a more complex whole. This notion of bringing together and arranging selected elements into an integrated environment – customized and personalized for specific uses – has profound relevance to the digital systems of tomorrow.